Macintyre Farm

Twenty Six

ANDREA POV

The spring was far more busy than I anticipated.

It took me almost a week to truly process how much effort Bash put into getting plans set to build our house.

Ours.

Once the dust settled and I was able to get my head around everything we had longer talks about what we wanted.  Bash already had a lot organized so once we figured out number of bedrooms, bathrooms, and general floorplan it was easier than I expected to come to an agreement on design.

Bash had a backpack with a bottle of white wine and some snacks ready so we took the horses to our new patch of land then discussed our ideas. I was thrilled with how much was already in place but my opinion was still valued. We talked over where the house would be and put down some flags with the basic perimeter, as well as the area for our porch.

Simon Kent mentioned they would need to grade the ground and make sure our home was far enough away from the pond.  We planned to have a cellar then agreed we wanted a ranch style home that had an open floor plan.

Mama loved our ideas.  She was excited to help as much as she could, especially since we intended to make everything accessible for her.  Austin was learning from our example.  He had his own ideas but continued to tweak once we learned more during the planning process.

Bash and I relaxed at the perfect spot with a view of the pond.  I took a selfie of us and promised him we would get more photos in that exact space through the building process. The angle had part of the pond in the background as well as where we hoped the barn would be so Bash thought it was brilliant.

Dad picked up our new horses and it was obvious how easy they were to work with from the start.  Their previous names were not exactly fitting and since the sweet stallions did not respond to them we decided to make a couple changes. They were now Goose and Stinger, after a completely ridiculous debate between Austin, Bash, and Taylor that took place over heated conversations that lasted about a week.

Goose was easy to name but Austin wanted to call the other horse Iceman while Bash was hoping for Viper. Finally when Taylor arrived at our farm we watched the original "Top Gun" again and they decided to go with Stinger. I suggested we choose something aside from their top names as more of a compromise so by watching the film we had the chance to get more objectivity.

Marianne and I laughed our asses off during the entire debacle. I would send her voice notes of the guys fighting about horse names while trying not to laugh too loudly. Dad gave up after a half hour and Mama was just amused overall.

It reminded us of the "Her sister was a witch!" viral video that went around awhile ago.  Making that parallel caused us to laugh even harder at their antics.

Thankfully we made a decision and both new horses had new names we were happy to use.

Taylor was thrilled with all the progress we made over the winter.  He could not believe how different Maverick was from back before he left. Bash got the credit for all the work invested but he continued passing it back to me.

He was too sweet.

Marianne spent as much time as she could with us and would stay with Austin, so we had a full house. The diner had another new waitress along with Sheila once she was back after her baby was born so it was nice to have her around more often. I could focus more on training while she helped Mama, though I was still there as much as possible for meals just like Mar took all the time she could to help with the animals.

We officially broke ground on our home when Bash's parents were visiting in late April.  Simon's crew did all the work to get the area prepared so it was a special moment. Helena and Isaac were wonderful additions at the farm. Neither had been around animals much in general but were excited to dive in.